Maryland removes last public courthouse Confederate statue

Workers have removed the final Confederate statute at a Maryland public courthouse, believed to be the last such public monument in the state located outside of a cemetery or battlefield, CNN reported. 

The Talbot County Council approved the removal of the Talbot Boys statue from the lawn of the county courthouse in Easton, Md., in a 3-2 vote last September, according to CNN. Nonprofit organization Move the Monument Coalition raised $82,000 to help fund its removal.

“It was the right thing to do,” Ridgely Ochs, a member of the Move the Monument leadership team, said in a previous statement. “The monument is a symbol of racial injustice. Removing it should be the beginning, not the end, of seeking racial equity in the county.”

A local NAACP chapter filed a lawsuit last year seeking to have the Confederate statue removed, claiming that it was “racially discriminatory and unlawful,” according to CNN. 

The Talbot Boys, a 13-foot tall copper statue of a boy holding a Confederate flag, is named after the fallen soldiers of an Eastern Shore regiment that fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, according to CNN.

Many visitors to the courthouse have cited the statue, which stood on its lawn for more than 100 years, as “as an unavoidable, painful reminder every time they enter and leave the courthouse during a trial, hearing, or public meeting, of the hateful legacy of slavery and those who fought to preserve it,” according to NAACP’s lawsuit. 

The statue will be moved to the Cross Keys Battlefield in Harrisonburg, Va., where the Confederacy won a battle in 1862, CNN reported. 

Officials said the Confederate monument will be under the care of nonprofit organization Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation.

“We believe that historic monuments should remain located where they were originally placed,” foundation CEO Keven Walker said in a statement, according to CNN. “However, if Civil War monuments that have relevance to the Shenandoah Valley are removed from their original locations, we are open to the appropriate relocation of such monuments to our National Historic District.”

Many Confederate statues across the country have been removed or relocated recently following a national racial justice protest movement sparked by the murder of George Floyd by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020, CNN noted.